The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall by Mary Downing Hahn

IDEKA Book Review

Title: The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall
Author: Mary Downing Hahn
Published: 2010
Synopsis on Goodreads: When twelve-year-old Florence boards the crowded horse-drawn coach in London, she looks forward to a new life with her great uncle and aunt at Crutchfield Hall, an old manor house in the English countryside. Anything will be better, she thinks, than the grim London orphanage where she has lived since her parents' death.
          But Florence doesn't expect the ghost of her cousin Sophia, who haunts the cavernous rooms and dimly lit hallways of Crutchfield and concocts a plan to use Florence to help her achieve her murderous goals. Will Florence be able to convince the others in the household of the imminent danger and stop Sophia before it's too late?
Goodreads average star rating as of post: 3. 95
My star rating: 1
Review: I originally gave this book 2 stars, but decided it was barely worthy of one, because I realized that this book bored me to death.
In the end, I didn't have as big of a problem with the boring characters, the stereotypical ghost story situation, the stereotypical portrayal of ghosts, the boring narrator, the boring plot, the boring ending, how unmemorable the characters were (I didn't know the main character's name was Florence until 3/4 of the way through the book), how none of the loose ends were really tied up, how the plot didn't quite come together like it should have, and how the author ruined Irish and Scottish accents for me by makin' 'em 'alk 'ike 'is 'a 'ole 'cking 'ime.
The book just wasn't scary. The author was trying to make me believe that I should fear a bratty 12 year old dead girl? No. Maybe if Sophia wasn't so annoying and whiny and egotistical, and if she was quirky and strange and mysterious, I might have not dared read this book past 9:00.
But, truthfully, I got what I was expecting. You can't pick up a book titled The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall that has a cheesy cover with blue font and fake blood and expect to be afraid. I picked this up as a joke, and it was cheap, and I got what I was expecting--a 1 star book.